BAN THE FSS OR MAKE AN ALTERNATIVE

[Micha]

Makes me mad i can't bind the key s of the fss too many controls its mindboggling

You don't need to bind all of them. Just movement, zoom, and exit is enough. On PC I have it bound to both my joystick (for use in VR) and mouse (for fast use).


What I -do- agree with is that any new features should have default keybinds added to the various control schemes; adding a new required feature and leaving it to the players to bind keys to it is just wrong.

 

[Burke]

exploration for me is now dead. Its just so unbeleivably unfair for this to have happened.

To expland on this a little. Clouds and lightning and space snowflakes and such, they arnt bad things totally the opposit, but they are not what i personally went looking for. They are a secondary thing to my enjoyment of the galaxy itself. I dont need the FSS and never did but i can see why others like it and i wouldnt suggest they should have to lose out in the way that i have.

 

[Micha]

Old way: Arrive in star system, honk while refueling. Discover 24 planets/moons. The local ones are all rocks. The other 15 are surrounding a star 500,000 LS away.

Have no idea whether there's anything else interesting in the system / on the planets without Mk1 eyeballing everything.

New way: Honk, discover 24 planets/moons, move away from arrival star for about 30 seconds, use FSS, scan EVERYTHING in the system in 5-7 minutes,

... and get notified whether there's anything interesting on any of the bodies and/or other Signal Sources in the system. Decide whether to stay and explore in more detail, or move onto next system.

---
EDIT:
So yeah, my vote is definitely to keep the FSS. Whether or not to provide alternatives I really don't care; that might depend a bit on what future plans there are for exploration/other mechanics and how the FSS ties into those.

 

[Burke]

Have no idea whether there's anything else interesting in the system / on the planets without Mk1 eyeballing everything.

... and get notified whether there's anything interesting on any of the bodies and/or other Signal Sources in the system. Decide whether to stay and explore in more detail, or move onto next system.

Correct me if im wrong but doesnt flying up to planets reveal that info now anyway? Soon after the update i went looking the old way "eyeballing" and i had this little spinning disk going for about 20 minutes. I never could tell if that was a server issue or a loose end left over that was never going to resolve. It cant see any reason not to allow the points to resolve if the player puts the effort in to go and scan the planet in the old way by flying up to it.

 

[Sixgun77]

But what are you suggesting? That FD ignores somebody elses request even when it would have no effect on you? Why would you do that? Or anybody else who has done so? It appears like its about shouting somebody elses idea down more then anything else. Honestly, if the old ADS was back in tomorrow would you even notice? You would have to go to a station to fit the thing so unless you did that it would have no effect on you.. literally zero. Find it in yourself to support people rather than being anti is all im saying


Thats aimed in general at everybody.

Im suggesting that it's better to let the devs know what you agree with or disagree with when people suggest things in the forum specifically for suggestion. Why should I remain silent while others petition the devs to make a change to the game that I don't like? In this case, yes, I want the devs to ignore the suggestion to do away with the FSS.

Yes, if someone wants a change that you don't want, wouldn't you voice your opposition? That's not necessarily shooting someone's idea down, even if the (apparent) majority disagrees with them.

Yes, if they changed the scanners back to the old way tomorrow I'd certainly notice as soon as I scanned a system.

I DO indeed support ideas I agree with. This evening, it happened to be a suggestion about synthing a srv in the field.

 

[Azmuth Divarchchron]

OP hasnt replied since first post.

Theres no reason to keep feeding the thread

 

[Kenpachi85]

I've made over 2 billion credits exploring using both the ads and fss and I'm of the opinion that the fss is way superior plus halfway makes sense unlike the magical hocus pocus ads. The fss is fdevs attempt at a combination of a radio telescope and optical telescope and make stuff more scientifically plausible. You use the radio telescope to locate the radio signals all celestial bodies make then use a advanced optical telescope to zoom in and analyze its composition. The ads made no sense at all in that a simple magic ping revealed every body and their locations in a entire system. Plus the time needed to scan a entire system with a fss is less by far compared to the ads.

The new keybindings seemed daunting at first but as others said you only need a few bound to work it. On my ps4 it's pretty simple while holding the throttle down button(for me its L2) I hit the □ button and that engages the fss. The joysticks move the camera the same as the ship pretty much and then left/right buttons on my dpad adjust the radio signal tuning. Then it's just R1+X to zoom in and L1+X to zoom out. It doesn't take long once you get a few simple bindings down you can be scanning systems much faster than a ads ever could. I can scan so fast now I get lag pretty often from the game trying to catch up to how fast I'm scanning.

 

[Kenpachi85]

Your probably right didn't see your post before posting mine. As somebody who's used both scanners extensively I'm truly flabbergasted as to why anybody would prefer the ads.

 

[Faded Glory]

As somebody who's used both scanners extensively I'm truly flabbergasted as to why anybody would prefer the ads.

Because some people like to explore differently...

You are quite correct, the FSS is extremely powerful, easy to use and very fast, scanning a system with 20 or so bodies takes less than 5 minutes and one with 50 bodies less than 10! That's opposed to the old way which would have taken likely 30 minute and an hour or more respectively.

Exploration is also very rewarding in terms of credits now. Prior to 3.4 I had made around 350 million credits from exploration in four years. A single, pretty short trip after 3.4 netted me an additional 240 million. One trip! FD obviously want players to try out exploration and the FSS, so they have made it very lucrative.

But as for those who prefer to do their exploration differently, perhaps looking for odd system topography, or maybe looking for unusual gas giants, they would be obliged to scan objects just to see whether they are interesting, and not because they are interesting. And after a while, that is going to become very tedious and unenjoyable, since the vast majority of the galaxy isn't really that interesting - or necessarily worth scanning unless you are interested in the credits.

And then there are also players who would prefer to actually fly to objects to discover them, and not discover the whole system just sitting at the star.

Although this thread was probably click bait, there is something to be said for giving players the option to explore in a way that they find enjoyable and rewarding, especially if it didn't spoil it for those who like using the FSS, which has been the main thrust of the arguments for reinstating the ADS as an optional module which nobody would be forced to use if they didn't want to.

 

[Kenpachi85]

You can still fly around as much as you like and perform surface scans to your heart's desire. If it's a previously scanned system then it's already mapped and you can fly to each planet and do a proximity scan just like before. And being obliged to scan stuff first doesn't seem like much of a chore to me at least. I get even large systems scanned in a minute or 2 tops and that's with scanning every single body. Astronomers use radio/optical telescope which the fss is modeled after the old ads had no basis in science at all it was pure magic.

To me the idea of wanting the ads over the fss seems like preferring to walk 15mi or whatever to work instead of using your car cause your nostalgic about your legs or something.

 

[Faded Glory]

You can still fly around as much as you like and perform surface scans to your heart's desire.

Yes you can, but in an unexplored system you will need to FSS the body first to find out where it is unless you want to do parallax exploring. And once you've FSS'd the body (which is the bulk of the exploration process) you may very well not want to map a body just for the sake of it.

If it's a previously scanned system then it's already mapped and you can fly to each planet and do a proximity scan just like before.

Why would you want to 'explore' an already discovered system? I never did that, and still don't even with the FSS.

To me the idea of wanting the ads over the fss seems like preferring to walk 15mi or whatever to work instead of using your car cause your nostalgic about your legs or something.

Yes, that's right. People aren't asking for the ADS back to make exploration easier, or quicker, or more lucrative. They are asking for it to facilitate a different kind of exploration that the FSS makes pretty much impossible.

And the point (I suspect) that Burke was making earlier, is questioning why anybody would object to that if they aren't being asked to do it themselves.

 

[Micha]

Correct me if im wrong but doesnt flying up to planets reveal that info now anyway?

Eh.. sorry, you're right; once within range, bodies get autoscanned. Not entirely sure where the POI information shows up though; the System Map is sorely lacking in this. I've flown up to a gas-giant and automatically scanned its entire system of moons, but I wasn't notified about any POIs. They do show up after mapping, of course, but I'm not in the habit of mapping all bodies.

My point about interesting Signal Sources (ie, NSP's at present) stands though - the only way to find them without using the FSS is by "eyeballing" the entire system.

 

[Kenpachi85]

Yes you can, but in an unexplored system you will need to FSS the body first to find out where it is unless you want to do parallax exploring. And once you've FSS'd the body (which is the bulk of the exploration process) you may very well not want to map a body just for the sake of it.

(Don't see the problem here even the biggest systems are scanned in a minute or 2 once you know how to use the fss don't see a burden here at all.)



Why would you want to 'explore' an already discovered system? I never did that, and still don't even with the FSS.

(Lol I started out exploring from the get go because I wasn't good at combat in the beginning. I scanned most the bubble in a cobra then scanned all the areas around the bubble before starting to do long range exploring. Why do it you ask....um...easy credits is why. Why around the bubble and other scanned systems? Because I was busy unlocking engineers and didn't want to go far out until I had my ships mostly engineered. You still make tons of money you just don't get your name on stuff and in the beginning it was all about credits for me. I used various road to riches apps like spansh.co.uk to find everything valuable in and around the bubble.)



Yes, that's right. People aren't asking for the ADS back to make exploration easier, or quicker, or more lucrative. They are asking for it to facilitate a different kind of exploration that the FSS makes pretty much impossible.

(Well he technically still can explore new systems the old way if his eyes are good enough to tell planets apart from stars in the distance lol. The ads made no sense in its operation the fss was fdevs attempt at a more realistic simulation. )

And the point (I suspect) that Burke was making earlier, is questioning why anybody would object to that if they aren't being asked to do it themselves.

But if people want both as a option I say go for it to each his own but axing the fss in favor of the ads wouldn't make sense now.

 

[Kenpachi85]

Eh.. sorry, you're right; once within range, bodies get autoscanned. Not entirely sure where the POI information shows up though; the System Map is sorely lacking in this. I've flown up to a gas-giant and automatically scanned its entire system of moons, but I wasn't notified about any POIs. They do show up after mapping, of course, but I'm not in the habit of mapping all bodies.

My point about interesting Signal Sources (ie, NSP's at present) stands though - the only way to find them without using the FSS is by "eyeballing" the entire system.

From what I've seen you have to launch surface probes to reveal pois like crash sites, surface sites, geological, ect. The pois that randomly get generated like a npc ship sitting on the surface or skimmers guarding materials wont be revealed though as all that stuff is randomly generated as you fly along. Though I'm sure you and most already know that part about the rng stuff.

 

[Micha]

From what I've seen you have to launch surface probes to reveal pois like crash sites, surface sites, geological, ect. The pois that randomly get generated like a npc ship sitting on the surface or skimmers guarding materials wont be revealed though as all that stuff is randomly generated as you fly along. Though I'm sure you and most already know that part about the rng stuff.

When you use the FSS, it tells you whether, and how many, of the persistent POIs are on a planet. When you fly up and automagiscan a planet, there's no such indication.

To actually pinpoint the POIs, yes, you have to map the planet using the surface probes. Which, IMHO, was a wasted opportunity; it should have revealed a search area, not the pinpoint, but anyhoo.

 

[Kenpachi85]

When you use the FSS, it tells you whether, and how many, of the persistent POIs are on a planet. When you fly up and automagiscan a planet, there's no such indication.

To actually pinpoint the POIs, yes, you have to map the planet using the surface probes. Which, IMHO, was a wasted opportunity; it should have revealed a search area, not the pinpoint, but anyhoo.

I see I think I remember seeing that come up before I just never played much attention I guess. The only time I'm after POIs is when I'm looking for a inara base or something and the fss has made that a lot easier than using corrodinates. I can find corrodinates and did so before but the fss is much less of a hassle.

A search area is a good idea though for us to have a little bit of a challenge when finding new surface POIs we haven't been to yet.

 

[Chaparral]

Comparing the honk to the FSS, FSS and probes are a total win. Mo money, access to interesting surface features, no more lat long fooling around, scan the whole system from a single point - the FSS is awesome.

Unfortunately the experience is visually pretty bad.

There is no reason that the electrocardiogram spikes couldn't have been replaced with actual visual representations of planets, belts, etc. that swell on selection. It's not like it's a mystery what each signal on the band actually represents. It's stylized obfuscation that serves no purpose.

There is a finite catalog of planetary types, all of which already exist in the image files.

There is already a focusing animation in play once you zoom on a circle as well, I'd say drop the circle and zoom on a fuzzy planet until it resolves. These are minor tweaks (probably a ton of work of course), but I think they would go a long way to make the FSS more like your looking at the system instead of an EKG.

 

[Captain Willard]

NAME IN CAPS, THREAD IN CAPS. CLICK BAIT. ANOTHER NOOB.

 

[Kenpachi85]

Comparing the honk to the FSS, FSS and probes are a total win. Mo money, access to interesting surface features, no more lat long fooling around, scan the whole system from a single point - the FSS is awesome.

Unfortunately the experience is visually pretty bad.

There is no reason that the electrocardiogram spikes couldn't have been replaced with actual visual representations of planets, belts, etc. that swell on selection. It's not like it's a mystery what each signal on the band actually represents. It's stylized obfuscation that serves no purpose.

There is a finite catalog of planetary types, all of which already exist in the image files.

There is already a focusing animation in play once you zoom on a circle as well, I'd say drop the circle and zoom on a fuzzy planet until it resolves. These are minor tweaks (probably a ton of work of course), but I think they would go a long way to make the FSS more like your looking at the system instead of an EKG.

+1 to everything you just posted especially the need for better graphics and stuff when in fss mode. The ekg analogy is spot on I always wondered what it reminded me of and it's that lol. I read somewhere on the forums that they don't plan on updating much until 2020 so what we have now is what we are probably stuck with for awhile at least.

 

[Azmuth Divarchchron]

how about we ban this thread?